The Secret Passage | Page 8

a dresser with blue and white china
adorned the other. On the outside wall copper pots and pans, glittering
redly in the firelight, were ranged in a shining row. Opposite this wall,
a door led into the interior of the house, and in it was the outer entrance.
A large deal table stood in the center of the room, and at this with their

chairs drawn up, Geraldine and the cook worked. The former was
trimming a picture-hat of the cheapest and most flamboyant style, and
the latter darned a coarse white stocking intended for her own use. By
the fire sat Thomas, fair-haired and stupid in looks, who read tit-bits
from the Daily Mail for the delectation of Mrs. Pill and Geraldine.
"Gracious 'eavens, Susan," cried the cook, when Susan returned, after
admitting the visitors, "whatever's come to you?"
"I've had a turn," said Susan faintly, sitting by the fire and rubbing her
white cheeks.
At once Mrs. Pill was alive with curiosity. She questioned the new
parlor-maid closely, but was unable to extract information. Susan
simply said that she had a weak heart, and set down her wan
appearance to the heat. "An' on that accounts you sits by the fire," said
Mrs. Pill scathingly. "You're one of the secret ones you are. Well, it
ain't no business of mine, thank 'eaven, me being above board in
everythink. I 'spose the usual lot arrived, Susan?"
"Two gentlemen and a lady," replied Susan, glad to see that the cooks
thoughts were turning in another direction.
"Gentlemen!" snorted Mrs. Pill, "that Clancy one ain't. Why the missus
should hobnob with sich as he, I don't know nohow."
"Ah, but the other's a real masher," chimed in Geraldine, looking up
from her millinery; "such black eyes, that go through you like a gimlet,
and such a lovely moustache. He dresses elegant too."
"Being Miss Loach's lawyer, he have a right to dress well," said Mrs.
Pill, rubbing her nose with the stocking, "and Mr. Clancy, I thinks, is
someone Mr. Jarvey Hale's helpin', he being good and kind."
Here Geraldine gave unexpected information.
"He's a client of Mr. Hale's," she said indistinctly, with her mouth full
of pins, "and has come in for a lot of money. Mr. Hale's introducing

him into good society, to make a gent of him."
"Silk purses can't be made out of sows' ears," growled the cook, "an'
who told you all this Geraldine?"
"Miss Loach herself, at different times."
Susan thought it was strange that a lady should gossip to this extent
with her housemaid, but she did not take much interest in the
conversation, being occupied with her own sad thoughts. But the next
remark of Geraldine made her start. "Mr. Clancy's father was a
carpenter," said the girl.
"My father was a carpenter," remarked Susan, sadly.
"Ah," cried Mrs. Pill with alacrity, "now you're speaking sense. Ain't he
alive?"
"No. He was poisoned!"
The three servants, having the love of horrors peculiar to the lower
classes, looked up with interest. "Lor!" said Thomas, speaking for the
first time and in a thick voice, "who poisoned him?"
"No one knows. He died five years ago, and left mother with me and
four little brothers to bring up. They're all doing well now, though, and
I help mother, as they do. They didn't want me to go out to service, you
know," added Susan, warming on finding sympathetic listeners. "I
could have stopped at home with mother in Stepney, but I did not want
to be idle, and took a situation with a widow lady at Hampstead. I
stopped there a year. Then she died and I went as parlor-maid to a
Senora Gredos. I was only there six months," and she sighed.
"Why did you leave?" asked Geraldine.
Susan grew red. "I wished for a change," she said curtly.
But the housemaid did not believe her. She was a sharp girl and her
feelings were not refined. "It's just like these men -- "

"I said nothing about men," interrupted Susan, sharply.
"Well, then, a man. You've been in love, Susan, and -- "
"No. I am not in love," and Susan colored more than ever.
"Why, it's as plain as cook that you are, now," tittered Geraldine.
"Hold your noise and leave the gal be," said Mrs. Pill, offended by the
allusion to her looks, "if she's in love she ain't married, and no more she
ought to be; if she'd had a husband like mine, who drank every day in
the week and lived on my earnings. He's dead now, an' I gave 'im a
'andsome tombstone with the text: 'Go thou and do likewise' on it,
being a short remark, lead letterin' being expensive. Ah well, as I allays
say, 'Flesh is grass with